This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in ISI Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Belina, B. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

From Disciplining To Dislocation

Area Bans in Recent Urban Policing in Germany

Leibniz-Institut für Länderkunde, Leipzig, Germany, b_belina{at}ifl-leipzig.de

In German cities, area bans (Aufenthaltsverbote) are issued against users of illegalized drugs and other `undesirables' to bar them from entering certain central city spaces. Drawing on materialist state theory, the expert discourses that legitimize these area bans are analysed in order to understand why this spatial measure of policing is on the agenda right now. I argue that these discourses reveal that area bans are aimed at dislocating undesirables; that they are based on a spatialization of `danger'; that they are symptomatic of recent developments in policing in that they abstract from the individual and engage in `governing at a distance'; that this very abstraction is made possible by the spatial approach of the area bans; and that the bans are therefore a suitable means to police the consequences of neo-liberalism in the entrepreneurial city.

Key Words: area bans • dislocation • drugs • Germany • legal geography • policing • spatial fetishism • urban renaissance

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?